The Love Doctors

by Fontaine, Bella

  Elizabeth reached up and cupped his face.

  His words warmed my heart. He was talking to her and looking at her like she was the most important thing in the world.

  “Thank you.” Elizabeth smiled. “I love it. It’s truly beautiful. If I could paint you, I’d do the same. I cooked for you though. Please accept my gift by eating before the food gets too cold.”

  “Okay. I’ll do that,” he agreed.

  I watched him as he moved over to the tray of food and sat in the chair.

  Elizabeth picked up a few of the paintings and came back over to us.

  “You may have him for as long as fifteen minutes, although these days, it’s getting to be more like ten. Then he’ll forget and start the process all over again,” she explained.

  “Is he like that every day?” Curiosity made me ask.

  “Yes, and apparently, I’m the thing he wants to remember the most. He paints. The doctors say it’s his way, his fascination. He does it to hold on to something. At first, it was a few here and there of me at different points in my life. Then, two years ago, all the paintings where of me when I was twelve. That was when we met. Then one day, he changed it up and it became these.” She held up one of the paintings.

  I couldn’t believe that everything on it was exactly the same in every way to the others. He must have had some talent to do that.

  “Always of you.” Ivan stated.

  “Always of me, and it’s my birthday every day, all day.” She smiled, but it was clear that while that was sweet, the seriousness in it was evident. “I’ll give you some time with him. Come and join us for some food, though, when you’re ready.”

  Ivan nodded.

  She left us, and Ivan took my hand and ushered me over to the seats in front of Jake, where we sat.

  He smiled up at us.

  “I’m sorry I can’t remember you. Maybe I will.” Jake looked at both of us. “Memory’s a lot worse than it used to be.” He tapped the side of his head with his finger and smiled.

  “It’s okay. I’m happy to enjoy your company whether you remember me or not,” Ivan told him.

  “Thank you. It’s so hard, especially on Elizabeth’s birthday. I want that painting to be perfect. Just like her.”

  I was already touched, but hearing that opened my heart. “You remember her?” I asked.

  “My wife. Of course. I know this much; you can forget everything else but never what you love the most. Never give up on what you want. I’ve always wanted to make her as happy as she makes me.”

  All I could do was stare. He sounded like someone else I knew.

  Ivan’s first rule or principle in his method was to never give up on what you want. I was starting to see what he meant, why he included it. It was real.

  “It’s important,” Jake added, looking at both of us. “If you truly love someone, you don’t just tell them, you show them, so they know.”

  “That’s so true,” Ivan agreed. “Do you remember how you met?”

  Jake smiled. “I was a farm boy, and she was the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. Someone a guy like me could never have. That didn’t stop me though. I first saw her when her family moved into the area. She was in the woods, sitting by a tree, writing in her journal. I’d never met anyone who called it a journal. I knew of diaries. Our first conversation was her giving me the difference, which to me still sounds the same. A book you write a daily record of the things that happen to you. Anyway, she didn’t like me very much because I didn’t get it.” He laughed. “Anyway, I knew I’d upset her, so I bought a journal for myself and showed it to her the next time I saw her. We used to meet up by that tree every day. It was her spot, but I decided on joining her. She loved the flowers and the lake. I wasn’t so good with writing, so I painted what I saw in my journal. Mostly pictures of her, and everything all around us. It was there she shared all her inspiration with me. The following year, my family decided to move to California, so I turned my journal entries into letters. Letters I sent to her. Paintings. She wrote back, and that’s how we were for the next five years.”

  He paused for a moment, and I wondered if that was the end of the story or if he forgot. What he’d said so far was truly impressive. Sam and Olivia used to write to each other. Especially when Sam served in the Marines. I’d taken it for granted, big time. I hadn’t really heard of people doing that. Hearing it again now showed that it wasn’t just about the writing. It was something special on its own. Something special between you as a couple.

  “I signed up for the Gulf War and nearly lost my life,” Jake continued. “My team and I got ambushed and there was a bomb that took out half of us. I was lying in a trench, injured for what seemed like forever. The memory of my girl kept me alive. I just kept praying that I would get the chance to see her again and if I got that chance, I’d marry her, and live the rest of my life with her. That’s what I did when I was found.”

  “That’s beautiful.” Ivan smiled.

  It was more than beautiful. It was the definition of inspiration in itself and he captured my heart.

  “No matter what happens to you, make sure you hold on to the thing most important to you.” Jake nodded and looked at the two of us.

  Then he narrowed his eyes, glanced down at the floorboards like he was contemplating something and looked at us again.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t remember what I was saying,” he stated and looked at Ivan like he was trying to figure something out. “Are you my son?”

  Ivan reached out his hands and covered Jake’s. “Let’s just say yes.”

  “Oh good. I should finish my painting of your mother.” He looked excited. “It’s her birthday. She’s gonna love this one.”

  Chapter 19

  Ivan

  Jada and I sat side by side on the beach watching the sunset.

  We’d left San Diego three hours ago after the barbeque. Instead of heading home, I’d suggested going to the beach to hang out for a while. So, we drove to Redondo Beach. It was near her house.

  She sat next to me, hugging her knees to her chest and that mass of long hair whipping about in the gentle sea breeze.

  Deep in thought, she gazed ahead at the horizon while I stole glances at her, admiring her beauty. Admiring her.

  Today had been quite the day.

  It really had.

  For some parts, it turned out better than I expected. Other parts, not so much.

  The bad parts were mostly about Jake. All in the sense that he’d gotten so much worse since I last saw him.

  At Christmas, which was only six months ago, he remembered me. He knew who I was. He still retold that story of Elizabeth and did the paintings, but it wasn’t so bad.

  Today showed the extent of his illness, and I could only see him getting worse.

  My point in today was showing Jada that there are some magical people in this world who are the complete opposite to what she thought, and that by entertaining the abrasive methods she designed, you miss out on the real stuff.

  I knew I boasted about being right and her being wrong, but at the end of the day, we were all a bunch of theories. Today I was just going on fact, what she could see for herself.

  Those were the good parts.

  Her watching Jake and watching him speak with the love he had for his wife. Those words he said to me, about holding on to the thing that was most important to me, were words I’d never forget.

  They were words he’d spoken to me before at different times since I’d known him. Every time, it meant something different.

  He said it to me that first day I met him. When Catherine introduced me to him and Elizabeth, and his memory wasn’t as bad. Back then, he’d just tell that story at different times in the day.

  He said it to me again on my wedding day, then most significantly, when the decision about turning off Catherine’s life support lay in my hands.

  That day was even harder.

  Up until that point, I’d thought the worst day of my life
was waking up from the nightmare of finding out I’d been in a car accident that would take football from me.

  That was nothing in comparison.

  Today when he said it, it was like I had to think hard about what I wanted most.

  For the last few years, I’d sort of floated around, getting lost in the thing that inspired Catherine so much. Helping people.

  I guess trying to find myself too, after all that had happened when I lost her, and in the process, help others.

  Today had felt different when he said it. It was like it was meant to remind me of something else.

  I found myself asking the question ‘What do I want most?’

  Right now, it was difficult to get my brain to think past a certain goddess who had plagued my mind for the last ten days.

  Much as I’d launched my attack on her with my articles, I liked that she was strong and resilient. I liked that she didn’t stand for any bullshit, and she had this strength about her that made her go for what she wanted.

  As the day wore on, I felt that it was as much for me as it was for her.

  Today had been about showing her how a strong couple could be, but it fascinated me to see little pieces of that wall she’d built up peel away. I’d seen it in her eyes as she’d looked at me, and being allowed in opened my mind too.

  I saw it in her eyes now as she gazed out to the gentle sea pulling in and out of the shore.

  She really was beautiful, and the beauty seemed lost in her thoughts by herself.

  I wished I knew what she was thinking. I suppose I had to give myself credit for A: getting her to spend the day with me, and B: that she was still here.

  “What?” she asked.

  Her voice broke the sounds of nature around us.

  “What? What?” I threw back with a smile.

  She looked across at me and returned the smile. “You keep looking at me.”

  “I like looking at you. Is that a crime now under Jada Law?”

  She smirked. “What am I going to do with you?”

  I widened my eyes. “Why the hell would you ask me something like that, woman?”

  She started laughing. “I don’t know. I must be losing my track on what I should and shouldn’t say to you.” She shook her head at herself, realizing that she shouldn’t say stuff like that to me.

  “I can think of many things you can do with me. All very fun. Right now, though, you can talk to me.” I raised my brows and flicked my wrist.

  The seriousness returned to her face.

  As I looked at her, I realized something. It was something that had been brewing in the back of my mind all day, all week even.

  The articles I wrote were about me trying to get the public to like me more. I used them for personal gain, to have an advantage over her. To beat those in power, you had to get more power over them.

  That’s what I’d done with the articles.

  Everything else I did was about her. There was a point when this whole stage stopped being about me, and I switched it up somehow.

  “There’s too much to say.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  “You can start with a small part of it.”

  She thought for a moment. “Thank you for today. Thank you for sharing your family with me, and sharing something so personal. I can see you have a lot of love surrounding you.” She turned and focused on me. “And you must have loved your wife very much to do all you still do. It’s beautiful.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  “I guess I should tell you what I learned today, since it was a field trip.” Her voice took on a shaky edge. “I learned you’re right.”

  I chuckled. “Jada, I love the sound of my voice, and I loved riling you up with the whole ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ battles we’ve been having, but today wasn’t exactly about proving myself right.”

  “But it was about proving me wrong.” She nodded.

  That was something I couldn’t exactly disagree with. “That’s something for you to decide.”

  “Do you think I’m completely wrong? Don’t you think helping women who’ve been wronged severely avoid the wrong person is something worth doing?”

  “I absolutely think it’s worth doing, and I’m certain a lot of people would love to know how to avoid situations like that; it’s just the premise you take I have an issue with. There’s no point in ending up like some boss lady with a man on a leash. All you’ll have is a bunch of playmates who you’ll never be serious about.”

  I was willing to bet that was her case, but I wouldn’t dare accuse her. I was perhaps just as bad. I’d been serial dating for the last six years. It took me two years after Catherine to even contemplate dating someone else. It took me even longer to have sex without feeling like I was cheating on her.

  The thing about Jada was, I didn’t think any of what she preached was the real her. I didn’t think she wanted to truly be that way with any guy she at the very least cared about. If she did, today wouldn’t have worked like I knew it did.

  I shuffled closer to her, and she looked at me, then back out to the sea.

  “Please… don’t tell me you did this whole thing today because you wanted to break me in some way before the show.”

  Normally, I would have laughed or said something funny, but I could tell she was serious and actually worried I’d done that.

  “No. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Last week, you were out for my blood, and my head.”

  “Last week, I didn’t know you. I still don’t know all that I want to know about you, but I know you aren’t the man-hating queen some people make you out to be. In fact, I don’t think you’re that at all. I wouldn’t show you all I did today just to break you down so you can perform any less than you planned to for the show. I didn’t plan to break you at all.”

  She winced and placed her hand on her forehead.

  I slipped my arm around her and pulled her closer to me. I was glad when she rested her head against my chest and placed her hand at the edge of where my buttons ended.

  “I’m not sure if it was easier to talk to you when I thought you were a jerk.”

  “Because now that you actually like me, it’s harder?” I grinned.

  “Yeah,” she confessed.

  “You know, I’m gonna ask you that thing I’ve been avoiding for the last few days… right?”

  That night I saved her and took her home, she said she fell for the wrong guy, who hurt her deeply. That was what all of this was about with her. I got the feeling that ‘deeply’ wasn’t a strong enough word to describe what had actually happened.

  “Yes… I’d be asking you the same question too. Thank you for not asking me straight out.”

  I’d seen patients in the past who’d been hurt so badly they couldn’t talk about what happened to them.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She nodded. “I’ve wanted to for the last twelve years, but somehow I can’t. I haven’t even told my best friend.”

  “Why not, Goddess?” It sounded serious.

  “I feel like when I start talking, I’ll stir up all I felt back then. Time has made me strong, but I don’t think I truly got past it.”

  “Because you didn’t address it. There was stuff I had to do too that I find hard to talk about.” Me signing the paperwork to switch off Catherine’s life support felt like killing her. Then watching her flatline …

  I hoped and prayed that no one would ever have to go through that and feel the way I did.

  She lifted her head and looked at me.

  “Did you talk about it eventually?”

  “I had to because I knew it was what was keeping me from moving on. Some things happen in life, and if you don’t address it, it just festers and turns into this big thing you never saw coming. Do you want to know what my thing was?”

  “Not if it’s painful.”

  “It’s always going to be painful to talk about.” I had to pull in a deep breath to clear my head as
I geared myself up to continue. “My wife had a rare form of cancer that came back. When I first met her, she was in remission. She was my therapist, and she gave me hope that I could walk again. She practically held my hand and worked so hard with me to get me to where I wanted to be. After my accident that messed up my legs, I was told there was a seventy-percent chance of being paralyzed for life. She took that to mean I had a thirty-percent chance of walking again. That was how she was. Before meeting me, she was given six months to live, but she tested fate and lived for another eight and a half years. Three of which were with me in her life. Two years as her patient, and a year and a half as her husband.”

  I stopped as the memories started flooding my mind. Memories I didn’t want to conjure up right now, but as they came, I got past them and continued my story.

  “It took me two years before I could make that first step. Before that, I went from nothing to moving my foot, then to walking all with her help. It was all her. It was a miracle because if I’d given up at any point, my life could have been very different. She believed in me. The cancer came back after we got married, and in a very aggressive way. It took her down, and she was hospitalized. It attacked her brain and spread through her body like it was coming back with a vengeance. Nothing worked. She slipped into a coma and eventually got placed on life support. She must have been completely brain dead for three months, and I hoped she would bounce back, but she didn’t. I… I had to give the permission to turn it off. Her parents had already made up their minds, but I just couldn’t. At first, I wanted to believe that we could keep hoping, like we did before. I realized it was selfish of me to keep her in a state she’d never want to be in. It always felt like I killed her.”

  There, I said it. The last time I talked like that was when I was in bereavement counselling. It was actually that counsellor who told me to do something to honor Catherine, something that would be special to the both of us. That was why I became a psychotherapist.

  Tears streamed down Jada’s cheeks. “You didn’t. You didn’t kill her Ivan.”